1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for organizing and storing parts of varying shapes and sizes. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for organizing and storing hand tools and small hardware components.
2. The Prior Art
Prior art devices for organizing and storing hand tools and small hardware components consists of flat perforated panels, toolboxes, and tool carts.
The typical flat perforated panel is a wooden or fiberboard sheet attached to a wall. The sheet contains a plurality of regularly spaced holes into which supports are positioned. The tools and components are placed on or hung from the supports. The flat perforated panel suffers primarily from the drawback that the maximum size of the panel, which relates directly to the number of tools and components that can be organized and stored, is the area of wall available for the panel. A small wall area means a small panel, even though the person may have as many or more tools than the person with a large wall area, thus requiring that some tools and components be stored remotely from the workbench, making them inconvenient.
The typical prior art flat perforated panel also needs to be mounted with spacers to offset the panel from the wall. This is necessary because of the space needed behind the panel for mounting the supports. As a result, the panel must be permanently mounted to the wall. Because the panel is permanently mounted, the rear of the panel is not accessible. Therefore, in order for the supports to be easily reconfigurable, they must be installed from the front only, using gravity and the friction between the support and the wall and back surface of the panel to hold the supports in place. Eventually, the supports can become loose and are easily dislodged when installing or removing the tool or component.
Another consequence of having the panel permanently mounted to the wall is that the rear surface of the panel, which is inaccessible, cannot be used for storage. All components to be stored on the panel must be stored on the front surface.
The typical toolbox is a box with a hinged top and a removable, segmented tray that rests on small shelves that extend inwardly from the walls of the toolbox. Although the tray typically has compartments for separately storing some small components, it is small, so most of the items are stored in the large common area of the box. Thus, the toolbox suffers primarily from the drawback that it is difficult to keep tools and small components organized and easy to find.
The typical tool cart is a stack of heavy metal drawers mounted on wheels. The tool cart can effectively organize tools and components, but takes up a large amount of floor space and may not be near the workbench.
Thus, there continues to be a need for a device for effectively storing and organizing small tools and components, and that can do so in a space-efficient manner.